65 Martin Luther King Jr Quotes on Freedom (MLK)
Welcome to our collection of MLK Quotes!
- Top Martin Luther King Quotes
- MLK Quotes on Love, Kindness, and Equality
- Inspirational Thoughts from Dr. Martin Luther King
- MLK Quotes on Education
- Short Biography: MLK
Top Martin Luther King Quotes
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. Martin Luther King, Jr.
True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let no one pull you so low as to hate them. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK Quotes)
If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Martin Luther King, Jr.
No one has the right to rain on your dreams. Martin Luther King, Jr.
MLK Quotes on Love, Kindness, and Equality
Nonviolence is absolute commitment to the way of love. Love is not emotional bash; it is not empty sentimentalism. It is the active outpouring of one’s whole being into the being of another. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK Quotes)
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational Thoughts from Dr. Martin Luther King (MLK Quotes)
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. Martin Luther King, Jr.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. Martin Luther King, Jr.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK Quotes)
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle, the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Let no one pull you so low as to hate them. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Almost always, the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first question that the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are not makers of history. We are made by history. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A riot is the language of the unheard. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind, and a tender heart. Martin Luther King Jr.
MLK Quotes on Education
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits. Martin Luther King, Jr. ( MLK Quotes)
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important. Martin Luther King Jr.
MLK Biography
Martin Luther King, Jr.( born Michael King, Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American pastor, activist, philanthropist, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was best known for perfecting civil rights by using peaceful civil defiance, grounded on his Christian beliefs. Because he was both aPh.D. and a pastor, King is occasionally called the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.( Rev.Dr. King), or just Dr. King. He’s also known by his initials MLK.
He was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 15, 1929. He was firstly named Michael, but when he was 5 his parents changed his name to Martin Luther in honor of a notorious German man from church history.
From his childhood, Dr. King was a brilliant student and strong speaker. He even skipped two grades in elementary school. He even competed in speech challenges where he talked about social equality.
He experienced racial prejudice since he was a young child, which lead him to devote his life’s work to accomplishing equality and justice for Americans of all colors.
King worked hard to make people understand that not only blacks but all races should always be treated inversely to white people. He gave speeches to encourage African Americans to protest without using violence.
Driven by Dr. King and others, numerous African Americans utilized peaceful, serene systems to battle for their social equality. These techniques included demonstrations and marches. Frequently, they were gone after by white cops or individuals who didn’t believe that African Americans should have more freedoms. No matter how badly they were gone after, Dr. King and his devotees never retaliated.
He coordinated the 1963 March on Washington, DC, where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The following time he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He battled for equivalent privileges from the morning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 until he was killed by James Earl Ray in April 1968.
Must Read
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Further Reading
- Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch
- A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches Paperback by Martin Luther King
- Why We Can’t Wait by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
- The Promise and the Dream: The Untold Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy by David Margolick
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